CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Chapter-06

ORGANIZATIONAL COMPETENCES AND SKILLS

No one can anticipate future, but organizational development
history and present practice can help to develop a picture of
what might lie ahead. And that is always exciting, rewarding
and challenging. Today the environment in which organizations
operate is competitive (in terms of global, national and regional
commerce). Only organizations can succeed, who is enabling to
balance the present against potentials of innovations. To
compete with the environmental changes, key competences are
required.
 COMPETENCE
Competence is the set of demonstrable characteristics and skills
that enable and improve the efficiency or performance of a job.
The term "competence" first appeared in an article authored
by R.W. White in 1959 as a concept for performance motivation.
"competence" as a combination of practical and
theoretical knowledge, cognitive skills, behavior and values used
to improve performance; or as the state or quality of being
adequately or well qualified, having the ability to perform a
specific role. For instance, management competency might
include emotional intelligence, and skills in influence
and negotiation.
 CATEGORIES OF COMPETENCE

1. Ordinary resources and competences

2. Important resources and competences
 Core competence
 Distinctive competences
 Organizational or business unit competence
 Supportive or Meta competence
1. Core competence: These are usually high competence
activities important at a firm corporate level, which are
key to the firm’s survival and are central to its strategy.
The capability to survive in the competitive environment.

2. Distinctive competences: Those high competence

activities that customers recognize as differentiating
your firm from competitors and that therefore provide a
competitive advantage. The capability of a firm to
establish itself as a different in the eye of customers.
4. Supportive or Meta competence: Any activity, which
supports a range of other activities. For example, a
competence for building and working productively in
teams can have a major impact on the speed and
quality of many activities in firms.

5. Dynamic competence: The capability of a firm to

adapt the change over time.
 ORGANIZATIONAL COMPETENCE
An organizational competence is an expertise shared by the member of a
workgroup to apply skills, tools and infrastructure towards effective
performance in response to a prospective situation. This definition
addresses a number of concerns:
1. Shared expertise suggests distinct practices that can be executed by any
of number of individuals with similar experiences and/or training. Individuals
in the work group may identify with professions or communities of practice.

2. The application of skills, tools and infrastructures is socially centered and

oriented towards action. Skills are the human ability to apply tools. Tools
are instruments or implements that are applied to extend human faculties.

3. Effective performance is judged situational. One members of a work

group need not conduct work activities in exactly the same routine manner
as another. Each skilled worker may apply expertise to make fine
adjustments based on the situation at hand.
 Ways of anticipating Organizational
competences

• Anticipation through learning

• Anticipation through knowledge
• Anticipation through ignorance
 Anticipating organizational competences
through learning
To survive in tough business world, it is not important to be the
best, but it is important to keep evolving to stay the best. This is
the identity of learning organizations. It must open its eyes, ears,
and mind to ground conditions and not miss the sights and
sounds that can form the basis for its future. The philosophy of
learning organization is examining, enhancing and improving
every business experience. Change is an input that leads to
learning.
 Values of learning
organization
Fred Luthans states that learning organizations are characterized
by human-oriented cultural values such as these:
(a)Everyone can be source of useful ideas, so personnel should

have access to any information that can be value to them;

(b)The people closer to the problem usually have the best ideas

regarding how to solve it, so empowerment should be promoted;

(c)Learning flows up and down the hierarchy;

(d)New ideas are important and should be encouraged and

rewarded; and
(e)Mistakes should be viewed as learning opportunities. This point

of learning from failures is important for people in the learning

organization.
 Practices of learning organization
Openness
Developing Systems Thinking
Development of Creativity
Proactive Approach
Instill a Sense of Empathy and Sensitivity
Institutionalize Learning
Leadership
Fostering Positive Mental Mindset (Mental Models)
Learning from Mistakes
Risk Taking
 Practices of learning organization
Openness: People openly communicate with each other (across vertical
and horizontal levels) without fear of criticism. It is team learning through
dialogue and discussion. It is fostering learning in other teams in the
organization to think insightfully about complex issues.

Developing Systems Thinking: This involves the ability to see connection

between issues, events and data as a whole (interrelationship) rather than
series of unconnected parts. Teaching people to identify the sources of
conflict they may have with other personnel, units and departments and to
negotiate and make trade-offs skillfully.

Development of Creativity: Another practice of learning organization is

to develop creativity among personnel. Creativity is the ability to formulate
unique approaches to problem solving and decision-making. Learning
organisations focus on getting employees to break their habits and think
“outside the box”.
 Practices of learning organization

Proactive Approach: Another practice is proactive approach to problem

solving by managements. They should solve the problems before critical
situation develops.

Instill a Sense of Empathy and Sensitivity: Another practice in learning

organization is to instill a sense of empathy and sensitivity towards others.
People to sort out misunderstandings through discussion, mutual problem
solving, maintain confidence and trust in the other party. This encourages
team working.

Institutionalize Learning: Organization to build not only individual

knowledge, but also institutionalize knowledge and values so that these are
transferred when some one leaves the scene. The culture retains the
knowledge and values. One way to launch learning organization is to create
teaching organization where people teach, what they learn, to others.
 Practices of learning organization
Leadership: Leadership in the organization to develop a culture of strategic
thinking so as to completely overhaul the organization.
Fostering Positive Mental Mindset (Mental Models): Learning
organizations foster the right mental model among employees for meeting all
situations. Organization has ability to challenge existing dogmas, values and
practices, in order to learn or unlearn from business situation. Organization
has to learn for the future.

Learning from Mistakes: Teams to review experiences after completion of

a project and do self reflection. They should have an honest assessment of
success and failure experiences of the project.

Risk Taking: Management to encourage employees to take calculated risks

in business operations, which will increase opportunities. Managements to
have quick response to market forces.
 Anticipating Organizational competences
through knowledge

Knowledge Management is simply delivering the right information, to the right

person, at the right time and place, to make a business decision of value of the
enterprise. “Knowledge Management is the engine that transforms ideas into
business value. It is a systematic process for creating, acquiring, synthesizing,
sharing and using information, insights and experiences to achieve
organisational goals” (Keeler, 2000).

Knowledge management can be described as consisting of following four major

processes (Alavi and Leidner, 1999):
(i) Knowledge creation (including knowledge maintenance and updating);
(ii)Knowledge storage and retrieval;

(iii)Knowledge distribution (sharing); and

(iv)Knowledge application (using the knowledge) in groups such as collaborative work,

multi-skilled teams, professional associations to share experiences in interactions.
 Verbalizing knowledge management programe

• Knowledge management is a systematic way to capture, share

and re-use our company’s knowledge.
• New and improved technologies are important to success of
knowledge management programme.
• Knowledge management is fundamentally about people and
behaviours that promote knowledge sharing and collaboration.
• In this corporation we are creating knowledge communities to
serve as resource for individual projects to manage our knowledge
and help our people collaborate across other units.
• Search/locate knowledge through various projects and ease the
performance of work of all professionals so that we are able to
give higher value to our clients.
• Knowledge management projects benefit from senior
management support.
 Andersen’s approach to implement knowledge solutions
recognizes and balances the interdependence of the
following critical elements:
# Leadership: The strategy of the firm, and how the organization defines its
business and uses its knowledge assets to reinforce its core competencies, is best
understood when the leadership demonstrates focus.

# Culture: This deals with how the organization views and facilitates both learning
and innovation, including how it encourages employees to build the organizational
knowledge base in ways that enhance customer value.

# Technology: This is an enabler as to how the organization equips its members to

communicate easily with one another, as well as the systems it uses to collect,
store, and disseminate information.

# Measurement: This provides for how the organization quantifies its knowledge
capital, and how resources are allocated to fuel its growth.

# Process: Last step is to identify information it needs and the manner in which it
collects, adapts, and transfers that information.
 Process of knowledge management (km)
1. First step towards knowledge management is strategic skill identification and
development
2. Second, from skills management to human capital management. Best way to
describe this expertise (skill) is through competencies.
3. Third, emphasis is on human capital approaches such as performance
management, leadership and succession planning, career development, compensation
and reward (incentive) solutions, to get creative people to share their knowledge with
their peers.
4. Fourth, the simplest description of human capital management is: the highly
responsive ability of a company to intelligently identify, source, evaluate and reward
the people required for any business initiative (challenge) by developing, enhancing,
or adding to an existing workforce inventory of competencies.
5. Fifth, creating a knowing enterprise is indeed the principle challenge of human
resource. In managing the organization, the important part is to convert the
knowledge into a product or service. This implies that intellectual capital must be
converted into performance
Anticipating Organizational Competences
through the Disclosing of Ignorance

a) Known unknowns;
B) Passive ignorance, as ignoring (which
includes errors and unknown known)
C) Unknown known; and
D) Active ignorance, as the ignored
(which includes taboos and denials).
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